A cold shower

[d1ng0d0g]

I have this game ever since it came out in the stores and even after all the patches it still does not feel finished and there are bugs and straight annoyances that keep showing up.

I've decided to list them.

I can consistently crash the game by conquering the Cherokee cities. The ones that are so close together.

Ships on trade points sometimes still end up land locked.

The relationship screen doesn't update your government after a rebellion.

Those are the bugs that annoy me immensely in each of my games.

But these do not even compare the incredible annoyance I have for the completely unbelievable declarations of war you receive from your 'best friends'

I am very much aware that the game is called Total War, but those wars should be sparked by actions, not out of the blue sky.

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Since I don't want this to just be a rant in the second section of this post I will give some solutions that should be programmable into the diplomacy system.

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Actions that would improve your relationship with another nation.

-Gifts
-Peace between the nations.
-Trade between the nations.
-Trade with befriended nations.
-Alliances between the nations.
-Alliances with befriended nations.
-Being at War with a mutual enemy.
--- This should actually entail that you are actually fighting the enemy, not just 'being at war' with them.
-Being more advanced. Countries who are more 'powerful' should have an easier time keeping peace if they so desire.
-Being distant. If you're not their immediate neighbor, are they going to care who you are.
-Not destroying them even though you could.
-Being similar.

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Actions that would hurt relationships between nations.

-Spying, Assassinations, actively converting their populace. Basically all agent actions.
- Trade with enemies.
- Alliances with enemies.
- Peace with enemy while the other nation is at war.
- Being less advanced
- Being neighbors.
- Territorial Expansion, especially destroying other nations.
- Being different.

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I am almost certain all these possibilities are in the game to use. Random events should be nice to be used to imbalance things. Such as events triggered on a failed espionage mission, where the agent wasn't caught. Instead of you getting the blame someone else gets the blame. Or when pirates sink ships you get blamed. Such things.

With that to the campaign game, it would be much more fun for everybody. And wars would still happen.

[Prussian to the Iron]

Actions that would improve your relationship with another nation.

-Gifts
-Peace between the nations.
-Trade between the nations.
-Trade with befriended nations.
-Alliances between the nations.
-Alliances with befriended nations.
-Being at War with a mutual enemy.
--- This should actually entail that you are actually fighting the enemy, not just 'being at war' with them.
-Being more advanced. Countries who are more 'powerful' should have an easier time keeping peace if they so desire.
-Being distant. If you're not their immediate neighbor, are they going to care who you are.
-Not destroying them even though you could.
-Being similar.

****

Actions that would hurt relationships between nations.

-Spying, Assassinations, actively converting their populace. Basically all agent actions.
- Trade with enemies.
- Alliances with enemies.
- Peace with enemy while the other nation is at war.
- Being less advanced
- Being neighbors.
- Territorial Expansion, especially destroying other nations.
- Being different.

****

they....uh......they already have all of those except maybe cultural and technological relationships.

[d1ng0d0g]

I am quite aware that they already exist in the game, that's what I said at the end, but they should have a greater effect.

Right now, best friends declare war, whereas potential enemies can actually stay friends for nearly the entire game.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Actually, gifts isn't quite working. You can give state gifts to influence them, but a regular donation of cash the old fashioned way doesn't seem to do any good.

My particular bugbear is when a very friendly nation that goes to war on you. I give it a spanking and take a few provinces. Finally it accepts the peace offer where I return all it's lands back to it plus a substantial amount of cash. Result? They are still mad as hell and the rest of the world condemns me for my "territorial expansion"!
Excuse me, but I think I'll just wipe the silly buggers out next time.
*sigh*
It's impossible to not be a megalomaniac head of state, the game just won't allow it.

[Didz]

I got so fed up with this I just decided to play equally dumb in my last game. France absolutely refused to make peace with me even in return for the return of Paris, so trashed the whole of France destroyed everything in it and gave it to the native american's.

Stupid game.

[Fisherking]

I got so fed up with this I just decided to play equally dumb in my last game. France absolutely refused to make peace with me even in return for the return of Paris, so trashed the whole of France destroyed everything in it and gave it to the native american's.

Stupid game.

That was the same problem I ran into with France!!!

I solved it differently however, Once I had Alsace under siege they saw the error of their ways and gave me their few remaining American regions in exchange for France, peace, alliance, and trade agreement. They even remained fast friends to the end.

[d1ng0d0g]

Well I had another attempt and another bump-in with my neighbors.

I was playing around with the Russians, being peaceful and non-aggressive, while all of a sudden Dagestan declared war on me. Then the turn thereafter the Swedes declared war on me.

Dagestan surprised me, even though I was prepared for either Georgia or Dagestan breaking their trade agreement with me and attacking, because there was an army waiting just for that moment they would do so, so I could wipe them of the map.

Sweden was no surprise, they declare war all the time, so while I rolled their empire up, having a little loss, so I decided to give Estonia to Courland in exchange for a trade alliance. I thought, because they were friends with Poland, my staunch allies they wouldn't mind.

I then rolled with my troops into Sweden itself who had recently conquered Norway. So I gave them a chance for peace .. give me Norway and I won't eradicate you. A trade agreement tossed in for good measure. My troops were teleported to the island that belongs to Finland and the next turn, to my surprise Sweden immediately declares war again.

While my troops are moving (tedious to move troops around by ship there), Courland declares war on me, Poland breaks their alliance (while they are at war with both Prussia, Austria and the Ottoman Empire). The next turn, those Courlanders lay siege to Ingria and this surprised me even more, Poland declared war on me.

In that same turn Georgia, and Persia declare war as well.

Here Pjotr was sitting, looking at his armies, at his enemies and all he could do was shake his head. Are all those countries run by complete imbeciles ? They decide to wage war on the only person who was perhaps willing to assist them in their wars.

[Prussian to the Iron]

totally dif experience.

russia:

dagestand and sweden DoWed pretty early, but somehow Dagestanwas samrt enough to send a sizeable force and besieged me. luckily, i like to spam Strelsy foot-guys in my cities(for the police bonus) and i barely won the battle.

it admittedly took a while to beat dagestan, and after defeating sweden, no one but Prussia has declared war on me.
now, ive almost beat georgia (who somehow control anatolia and the ottoman holdings north of palestine) and I'm readying my invasion of Prussia. I'm a little scared to DoW on anyone else, because it will end up with me losing most of my trade in a multi-front war.

so after a little while, I'll probably move south through Persia, and take the ottoman lands in africa. after that, i'll either move west and steamroll the barbary states, or move southeast and beat the mughals to bits.

[Prodigal]

France absolutely refused to make peace with me even in return for the return of Paris, so trashed the whole of France destroyed everything in it

Pretty certain that the AI's attitude is historically correct in this regard, for once.

Despite being savaged three times by a Dutch English coalition, (with drastic losses to the cheese eaters), and having their unbreakable line of forts breached, they always managed to bounce back simply due the countries size, the british governments idiocy at the time helped quite alot too.

So next time you're about to take out France, make like the tory government of the time & invade spain! Not at gibralter either, oh no, sail them all the way round to barcelona.

Look at it from this point of view & the game doesn't seem half as stupid.